Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [67]
“Maybe you would like to take Ellie May down to your house, Lov?” Jeeter suggested. “She ain’t got a man, and it looks like she ain’t never going to get one, unless you take a fancy to her. You and Ellie May was hugging and rubbing of the other the first of the week, around at the front of the house. Maybe you would want to do that some more?”
“Reckon if I was to go up to Augusta and find her, she would let me bring her back home to stay?” Lov said. “Reckon she would, Jeeter?”
“Who—Pearl?” Jeeter said. “No, I wouldn’t recommend that. You’ll lose your time down there at the chute while you was looking for her, and it’s like I said at the start. Pearl is just like Lizzie Belle and Clara and all the rest of the gals. They was plumb crazy for getting stylish clothes. None of them gals of mine liked to wear the calico and gingham Ada sewed.”
“But Pearl—she might get hurt up there in Augusta—
“Lizzie Belle and Clara took care of themselves all right, didn’t they? They didn’t get hurt none. Now, as I was saying about Ellie May. You can take her to your house, Lov. Ellie May would be crazy about going down there to stay all the time. She wouldn’t be never getting down on no durn pallet on the floor, neither.”
“Seeing them long yellow curls hanging down her back used to make me cry sometimes. I’d look at her pretty hair and eyes so long that I thought I’d go crazy if I didn’t touch her and see deep down into her eyes. But she wouldn’t never let me come close to her, and that’s what made the tears fall out of my eyes, I reckon. I been the lonesomest man in the whole country, for the longest time. Pearl was so pretty it was a sin for her to do like she done.”
“Ellie May’s got to get a man somewhere. She can’t stay here all the time. When me and Ada’s dead and gone, there won’t be nobody to watch after her. If she stayed here at the house by herself the niggers would haul off and come here by the dozens. The niggers would get her in no time, if she was here by herself.”
“The last pretty I got for Pearl was some green beads on a long string. I gave them to her and she put them around her neck, and I swear to God if it didn’t make her the prettiest little girl I ever saw or heard about in the whole country.”
“If you want to take Ellie May with you now, I’ll tell her to wash herself up and get ready to go,” Jeeter said.
“I might take Ellie May for a while, and I might not. I don’t know what I’m going to do about Pearl, yet. I wish I could get her to come back.”
“Ellie May’s got—”
“Ellie May’s got that ugly-looking face,” Lov said. “I don’t know as how I would want to look at it all the time.”
“You would sort of get used to it, slow-like,” Jeeter said. “It don’t bother me none now. I got used to looking at the slit and I don’t notice it no more.”
Lov stood up and leaned against the well. He was silent for a long time, looking out over the tall brown broom-sedge. Jeeter watched him, and whittled on a little stick with his pocketknife.
Ellie May was behind another chinaberry tree then. She had moved from one to another while Lov and Jeeter were busy talking. She had at last come closer so she could hear what was being said.
Presently Lov turned around and looked at Ellie May. She jerked her head behind the chinaberry tree before he could see her face.